January 16, 2025
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In this episode, Wendy speaks with psychologist and cognitive scientist Molly Crockett. Molly is a leader in studying moral cognition, with an emphasis on ethics, knowledge, and power in the digital age. This conversation covers many topics, including:
- the limits of quantitative (scientific) ways of knowing;
- the importance of narrative in shaping ideas and behavior;
- moral outrage on social media;
- who benefits from a culture of outrage;
- the role of scientists in our narratives about human nature;
- how artificial intelligence influences what we consider as human;
- using artificial intelligence for compassion;
- a Dalai Lama chatbot vs. the real Dalai Lama;
- the importance of embodiment in human communication;
- studying transformative experiences at Burning Man;
- technology and “Paleolithic” emotions;
- epistemic injustice;
- and the critical importance of valuing multiple ways of knowing.
Molly Crockett, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Princeton University’s Department of Psychology and University Center for Human Values. Prior to joining Princeton, they were an Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale University, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College. Molly’s research integrates psychology, neuroscience, economics, philosophy, and data science to investigate how people learn and make decisions in social situations, with an emphasis on moral cognition: how people decide whether to help or harm, punish or forgive, trust or condemn. Recently, they have applied these insights towards understanding moral cognition in the digital age and across different types of social relationships, and how these themes connect with the psychology of self and identity. Outside the lab, Molly is a practitioner and teacher of Samatha meditation.
Resources
Princeton University
Lab website
- Paper: Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research.
Nature, 2024. - Paper: Norm psychology in the digital age: How social media shapes the cultural evolution of normativity. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2023.
- Paper: How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Science Advances, 2021.
- Presentation to the Dalai Lama (2018): The Stories We Tell About Who We Are